Re: brouhaha

What's absurd is the example, and you're the one that's dodging my point. You
cut too selectively, Robbie. I'll get to that below.

Of course the rules I set out, as rules followed stupidly (in other words,
without exception), do justify the readings you offer. Just like my rule about
following the elements of German grammar too closely, at the expense of writing
good English, also shouldn't be followed without exception.

Just take for granted that whenever I establish a rule, I already have in mind
that the rule has exceptions. Like most rules. We should generally follow
rules of good English when writing translations, but should be willing to write
slightly worse English if we can pick up nuances in the German that would be
missed otherwise.

Similarly, when reading a text written 100, 300, 500, or 1000 years ago or in
another language we should keep in mind the English we're reading isn't "the
text" -- it isn't Homer's _Odyssey_, in other words -- but something else. Even
if it's in Elizabethan English -- or all the more so if it's in Elizabethan
English -- we should keep in mind, if we're conscientious readers, that the many
of the words mean something different in relationship to each other than they
would if found in a modern English text.

But does this limit the "meaning" of the text -- and you really need to
emphasize the word "text" in this sentence, Robbie -- to authorial intent? I
can still argue "no." Even though, as I said in my previous post (and as you
ignored), we may conscientiously define each individual word within a
Shakespearean play the way Shakespeare defined it, that doesn't mean the _text_
comprised of those words will always add up to something Shakespeare intended.

That's what I said at the end of my post, Robbie, and that's why your example
was itself cartoonish and misses the point.

What I should do at this point is provide an example. I'm reading, right now,
_Dialectic of Enlightenment_ by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. They have a
chapter, coincidentally, on _The Odyssey_. Let me quote from the opening
paragraph:

"Just as the story of the Sirens illustrates the intertwinement of myth and
rational labor, the _Odyssey_ as a whole bears witness to the dialectic of
enlightenment [defined earlier]. In its oldest stratum, especially, the epic
shows clear links to myth: the adventures are drawn from popular tradition. But
as the Homeric spirit takes over and 'organizes' the myths, it comes into
contradiction with them. The familiar equation of epic and myth, which in any
case has been undermined by recent classical philology, proves wholly misleading
when subjected to philosophical critique. The two concepts diverge. They mark
two phases of an historical process, which are still visible at the joints where
the editors have stitched the epic together. The Homeric discourse creates a
universality of language, if it does not already presuppose it; it disintegrates
the hierarchical order of society through the exoteric form of its depiction,
even and especially when it glorifies that order." (35)

Do you think Homer or the editors of the Odyssey could have envisioned a
paragraph like this being inspired by their work? No. Does that mean it
doesn't say something useful about the Odyssey? Get some meaning out of it?
No.

Funny how complicated things get when we try to do more than just define
individual words or state the obvious about plot elements.

Jim

"L. Manning Vines" wrote:

> Jim writes:
> << [. . . ] the examples you provide are more the types of MISTAKES
> [emphasis mine] a casual reader would make, and not a literary critic. You
> use very poor examples of the work of literary critics [. . . .] This
> [other, deleted, example] is a lot less CARTOONISH [emphasis mine] than
> imagining someone past the undergraduate stage would think the word "gay"
> means "homosexual" in Shakespeare's work. >>
>
> I think you're dodging something here, whether you mean to be or not.
>
> They are cartoonish and absurd. Very few people, I think, would fail to
> dismiss them outright. This was precisely the point. But if (admittedly
> uncertain and hypothetical) suppositions concerning Melville's or
> Shakespeare's intent, or the "specific cultural references, etc., meaningful
> to the author," are wholly disregarded or receive no preference, the grounds
> for calling such things mistakes and cartoonish become much less clear.
>
> If one is dubious of the validity of lending this preference, what allows
> him to call such a reading absurd? The answer to this question is not clear
> to me, which is why I suggested that a person who -- like me -- will react
> negatively to such a reading (and call it a mistake or cartoonish), but
> who -- unlike me -- is reluctant to lend the preference you mentioned before
> to "specific cultural references, etc., meaningful to the author," this
> person needs to puzzle out some of these things in order not to be acting
> inconsistently with himself. The reader or critic who does lend such
> preference might find interesting and worthwhile thought and discussion in
> the subject, but it is not -- at least so it seems to me -- nearly so
> pressing to him.
>
> Of course Shakespeare didn't mean homosexual when he said gay. Of course
> Melville didn't mean George Bush. Of course these "meanings" were
> unavailable to the authors and their original audiences. But if I don't see
> facts concerning what the author could have or couldn't have meant as
> valuable, if I don't lend preference to "specific cultural references, etc.,
> meaningful to the author," then what makes these readings absurd?
>
> -robbie
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Received on Mon Apr 21 22:11:10 2003